Christmas day...

HAPPY CHRISTMAS!!
I had a great day with my Flatties and their families.
Nick's mum and I drinking some very nice Rosé

Everyone around the table...

We also had a trail run of Chris and Nick's wedding cake, and they had a trail run of cutting it!

Tui in Chris' parents garden

Chris and Nick also gave me my FAVOURITE present - this cool book about New Zealand natural history called "NZ's Wilderness Heritage"

They said they would like to look at it too... I'm sure I'll allow them the odd peak, if I'm not looking at it!

A nice day for lunch with Ritchie

Where you ask?
Why of course it'd be at the centre of our fair nation - at Parliament

The Feeling

The Feeling are an awesome band from the UK, thanks Si for sharing them with me!
This song has great lyrics, TAKE NOTE!



The lead singer is gay too, which is cool...

Moving to The Far Side of reality

Well in true psycho Gary Larson style (he is insane you know) I made myself an NZdating profile... So far I've got about 65 messages in about 6 hours! Most are, of course, from total freaks. But hopefully not all... We'll see ;)

Out and about in Wellington

Si was down for the weekend, so we did lots of cool stuff, including:
Driving my car...


Playing lots of pool with Ritchie and some very nice lesbians...



We went out on Friday night to S&M's, it was a nice relaxed evening though cause I was working heaps the next day...

We had the goodness that comes from Satay Noodle House (and had a look at the fish)...

And Si helped me out with my website, so now it's the same layout as my blog... Its a good place to download free stuff! (If I'm feeling nice that is...)

Si and I also went to see Rock n Rolla, which I liked a lot, pleasing to the eye and funny too!

Thanks Ritchie for taking some of those AWESOME pics ;) - see now you can't sue me!

So yeah, was a nice time, but back to reality now...

Oh, and yesterday I also played the Boxing game on my Wii for 35 mins as a bit of a workout. It was really intense and now I'm REALLY sore! I'm going to start doing it daily, but I'll have a day off today I think... And maybe work into it slowly!

Also I've decided I don't like being on my own, so I'm contemplating an nzdating profile... oh dear!

Jury Duty

Last week I had my first ever jury duty experience...

To get onto the jury you have to get through 2 stages of ballots, and then not be challenged by either sides lawyer (if they think you'll be bias against them they won't let you be in the jury).

This is what the case was about:

So I made it onto the jury, and the 12 of us spent the week listening to evidence about the two charges. We spent HEAPS of time waiting in our jury deliberation room, as it turns out that anything thing takes ages in court, even just getting everyone in their right positions so we can enter the room!

The accused was blatantly guilty, but unfortunately we could not find him guilty. This is because 1 person within the jury was adamant that he wasn't guilty. This lead to a very unsatisfying 'Hung Jury' where we couldn't get a verdict and so we were released by the judge, and the trail has to start again with a fresh jury. In NZ a jury must be unanamous, and without that no verdict can be given.

The whole thing is really frustrating cause I know he is guilty as sin, but he's got another chance to get off, and in the mean while he's out there in the community...

All I can say is NEVER under any circumstance let your children go to public toilets on their own. NEVER

Even after my less than satisfying week, I'd still recommend anyone who has the opportunity to do jury duty to do it at least once... I think it was an interesting experience to add to my life, and I met some cool people who were on the jury with me too :)

Greedy Tui's

I went to the Sanctuary again today with Matt (And he joined too which was good)
The Tui's were all over the flax, and lots of them had yellow pollen on their foreheads which was pretty cool :)

They were also posing lots

I love summer :)

1st time to taranaki...

Taranaki (otherwise known as The Naki ) is north west of Wellington, and I've just got back from my first trip there! I went up for a science conference (my first one!) but it was a good opportunity to see some of the place too :)

View Larger Map

Famous for the mountain, dairy farms (on the fertile volcanic plains around the mountain) and surfing on the coast, Taranaki is definitely a small piece of the South Island on the North Island...

The Conference went really well. I was a bit scared because it was my first one, but there were lots of familiar faces there which was nice! Met some new people too, and definitely learned a bit more about whats going on with freshwater science in NZ... There was also a presentation given about the Trout Eradication Trial which I helped out with earlier in the year, if you are interested you can have a look at it here.

On the second day, I skipped the 'poster session' to go and visit the mountain with Jess and her boyfriend. It had been overcast the day before, but it clouds were starting to clear!!

The forest on the mountain is beautiful, lots of ancient trees


Go Fishy go!

Lots of Mountain Cabbage Trees

And lots of them were flowering too, which look very different from normal cabbage trees...

Me with the mountain

The clouds over the summit were awesome!

It would have been nice to climb to the summit, but it's an 8 hour walk, and it was already about 4pm so we only went for a little walk up the track to see the forest.After that we headed back into New Plymouth, to check out the famous Botanic Gardens.

This is me sitting on the trunk of a (very) old wisteria...

The Mountain in the background - this was the view a century ago

There were heaps of ducklings about too, and this duck had 16 all to herself!

Cool waterfall

That evening we had fish n chips on the beach

And watched the surfers too

Cool beetle!

That night I went back to the Botanics, and there were lots of lights in the trees, very flash

Same view over the lake with the Mountain in the background

On the last day we went on field trips. I did the Wetland Monitoring trip, and felt right at home in the Raupo!

We had dinner at Yarrow Stadium that night, and most people dressed up. The theme was 'provincial and proud' but I don't have any Hurricane clothes, so wore my Scotland rugby top and painted a St Andrews cross on my face :)
Half way through the meal the fire alarm went off and we all had to wait outside until the fire brigade arrived and gave us the all clear...
It was a good trip!

Cool VW!

I left my car with my mechanic for the day yesterday - the only possible problem that it had was a chance that it had oil pressure issues... Thankfully after some tests my pressure is 40psi, with the minimum being 28, so I'm happy :)

This is a car which he had in his workshop, its very cool and I want one for summer!!
(Dune buggy style beetle, the floor pan was cut down 4.5 inches, and full fibre glass body and everything else stuck on top)

Lane did however show that he gets up to mischief when I leave him with my car!

Suffolk & trip home

I'm feeling a bit jet-lagged today, so I'm not going to write much, mainly pics...
So I got to Suffolk, where my Dad's sister Trish & her husband Peter have got 2 daughters, and they have 5 kids between them...
This is Josh, 9 yrs old and apparently good at any sport he tries - I was very impressed with his Tennis!

While Josh had some tennis training, we went for a walk around Southwold.
It was pretty windy!
These wee beach huts sell for over 80,000 pounds! Pic of Megan, Clare's daughter


That afternoon we played some Wii - Peter nearly took out the TV playing bowling - Trish was scared...

Church at Brandeston, where Trish & Pete live

Family gathering - Jo & Clare's kids

Jo with Harry, Katie & Tom

Tom can eat, like his God Father!!

(except not today... I think it's because I'm jet lagged...)

We had a bomb fire & fireworks that night, several ninja worriers appeared out of the night...

Jo, Katie, Tom and me

Harry & me

Clare with a cool old building!

The day I left, Grandad & I went to Oxford, to see Hugo (cousin) play Rugby.

His team played well, making much fewer mistakes than the opposition... but they were all much bigger and unfortunately won :(

I had 8 hours in Sydney on the way home, I took the train into the city and had a walk round

After about 4 hours I was really tired though, so went back to the air conditioned comfort of the airport! I had a close encounter with a new A380 though which was pretty cool!

So there you have it, that is/was my holiday.
I had an AWESOME time, but today I really do just feel knackered!
I tried to go to work today, but I've come home early cause I'm just exhausted...